# brain: the 'loosely balanced state' of cerebral cortex

<< Many studies have shown that the excitation and inhibition received by cortical neurons remain roughly balanced across many conditions. A key question for understanding the dynamical regime of cortex is the nature of this balancing. (..) loose balance, but not tight balance, can yield many nonlinear population behaviors seen in sensory cortical neurons, allow the presence of correlated variability, and yield decrease of that variability with increasing external stimulus drive as observed across multiple cortical areas. >>  

<< at least sensory, and perhaps all of, cortex operates in a regime in which the inhibition and excitation neurons receive are loosely balanced. This along with the supralinear input/output function of individual neurons and simple assumptions on connectivity explains a large set of cortical response properties. A key outstanding question is the computational function or functions of this loosely balanced state and the response properties it creates >>

Yashar Ahmadian, Kenneth D. Miller.  What is the dynamical regime of cerebral cortex?  arXiv:1908.10101v2 [q-bio.NC] Aug 28, 2019.   

https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.10101